This guide covers buying and reading eBooks on Sọna in Tanzania, and what is open to authors and publishers there.
Buying and reading · Authors and publishers
For Readers in Tanzania
Many online bookshops expect a bank card that works for international payments. If you live in Tanzania and do not have one, buying an eBook can be harder than it should be.
On Sọna, readers with an account in Tanzania can pay with mobile money.
What You Need
- A free Sọna account, with Tanzania as your account country.
- A mobile money wallet.
- A phone or tablet for the Sọna Reader app, which is on iOS and Android.
How to Buy a Book
- Create your account. Sign up at readsona.com and choose Tanzania as your country.
- Find a book. Browse the catalogue at readsona.com/browse, or search for a title or an author.
- Add it to your cart. You can add more than one book.
- Go to checkout. Sọna shows the payment options for Tanzania.
- Choose Mobile Money. You see the full total, including the payment fee, before you pay.
- Complete the payment. The book goes into your library.
Books are bought on the website. You then read them in the Sọna Reader app.
Your Other Payment Options
Mobile money is not the only way to pay from Tanzania. At checkout you can also choose:
- International Card. A card from any country.
- USDT / USDC. Payment from a crypto wallet.
- Bank Transfer (Naira). For readers who have a Nigerian bank account.
The payment fee differs from one option to another, so compare the totals before you choose.
Why Prices Are in Naira
Sọna was built in Nigeria, and authors set one price in naira. At checkout you see the total for the payment option you pick before you confirm anything.
A Book to Start With
Start with a free book. The Offline Girls by Lara T. Kareem is a near-future thriller about a girl who disappears when her safety implant fails to send an alert.
The Offline Girls
by Lara T. Kareem
In 2059, the Girl-Child Safety Implant is supposed to make one thing impossible— a girl…
Read more
disappearing without a trace. Then seventeen-year-old Kulu goes to the market and never comes home. Her implant never sends a distress alert. When Rakiya checks the system, Kulu’s status eventually changes to two words she has seen before: Offline (Error). Rakiya’s university research has already uncovered strange failures in the safety network serving rural communities. Kulu’s disappearance turns those anomalies into something personal. Other girls have vanished the same way, all from underfunded regions still running outdated firmware. As Rakiya follows the data and speaks to the families left behind, a pattern begins to emerge. These girls are not simply falling through the cracks. Someone knows exactly how to make them disappear.
Show lessIf Mobile Money Does Not Appear
Check the country on your account. Your account country decides which payment options you see. You can change it in your account settings, and then go back to checkout.
For Authors and Publishers in Tanzania
Sọna does not yet pay out author earnings in Tanzania. Payouts are available in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
eARC campaigns work in every country, so you can still send advance review copies to readers. If you want to sell your book on Sọna from Tanzania, write to [email protected] and we will look at how we can pay you.
